The present invention relates to a method for accessing information sources and services on the Web. It also relates to a device for implementing said method.
The use of Internet and the Web for accessing information and sources of every kind is presently drastically increasing. To permit access to Web sites providing said information and services, navigation software like Internet Explorer™ or Navigator™ have been widely diffused and nowadays equip every personal computer and workstation connected to Internet. These navigation software permit access to sites providing with search engines like Yahoo!™ or Voila™ allowing to emit requests in natural language and to receive in return a plurality of sites classified by decreasing relevance order. Furthermore, “portal” sites are presently developing, with a generalist or specialised objective, the function of which is proposing to a user on one hand direct accesses to some pre-selected sites and on the other hand accesses to headings. The choices of a site or of a heading are represented either by a designation or by an icon or a fixed or animated image. Pointing and clicking by means of a mouse on the corresponding active zone causes generating by the navigation software a Web address on Internet, permitting access to selected site, and within said site, to a document or a plurality of searched documents. In fact, in response to                such a request, the requesting station can receive either directly a document, or usually a new HTML page containing itself a more and less high number of links among which the user will still have to make a new choice.        
Now, a delay corresponds to each request-answer step, with a variable duration conditioned by non-controllable parameters like traffic on the network, jamming and power of servers in the consulted sites or also the memory size of the received pages. It results in a real discomfort felt by a number of Internet surfers, so far as to dissuade some of them from launching an information search that could prove to be long, tedious, and uncertain.
Furthermore, in addition to the above-cited problem of response time and search duration, the question of providing users that are not accustomed to computer tolls and Internet with a quick and easy access to information sources and services, also arises, while said quick and easy access is not properly provided by the generalist portals presently available on the Web.
Document EP0847019 discloses a method for selecting an item of information in an information processing system, wherein a user is provided with an access to two items of information through respectively two structures of multi-levels hierarchical menus. The second structure of menu comprises at least the sub-menus provided in the first structure of menu and the second sub-assembly includes at least the items of information included in the first sub-assembly. A user leaving the first structure of menu in a particular sub-menu enters the second structure of menu in a sub-menu that corresponds to this particular sub-menu.